


Habitual

by Nautilusopus



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Guilty Cigarettes, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Advent Children (Compilation of FFVII), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Smoking, Survivor Guilt, and the behavioural patters associated with it, crisis core and dirge are not canon and can suck it, no betas here we die like men, the most scarring prospect of all -- waking up very early
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24567340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Tifa allegedly quit cigarettes a while ago, which means it's probably, definitely not her that Cloud smells smoking out back.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, can be read as gen or romantic your call
Comments: 19
Kudos: 59





	Habitual

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Denebola_Leo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denebola_Leo/gifts).



> This was a requested piece for Denebola Leo! Thanks so much for having this level of faith in me, jeez. I should've gotten this done a while ago honestly. 
> 
> Feels good to actually get shit accomplished, though. Rest assured, yes, I am still working on chapters.

"Pick one," said Hojo.

Cloud had been careless. Too much personal information out in public, or -- or he hadn't noticed he'd been followed. Wasn't Hojo dead? But he wasn't, obviously, because he was here, with --

"Just one," said Hojo. "That's all you have to do. The other goes free, and I have a new subject. We both win, yes?"

He pressed the gun a bit harder against Zack's forehead. Zack took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed his eyes. Beside him, held by a guard, Aeris continued struggling in vain against the cuffs they had her in, hyperventilating as a rifle was levelled between her eyes.

Before both of them knelt Cloud, his weight being held up by another two guards, too drugged to do much more than weep.

"Please," he begged, "take me instead. Please, I'll do anything you want --"

"What I want is for you to choose," said Hojo bluntly. "We both know from experience you made an exceptionally poor subject."

"Take me instead," he repeated. "Please, I-I can't --"

"If you don't choose one, I shoot them both," said Hojo, losing patience, jamming the barrel of the gun into Zack's forehead. Aeris yelled something fearfully into her gag.

"I -- I can't -- please -- please, take me instead, please!"

"Time's up," said Hojo. He motioned to the guard holding Aeris.

"No -- NO!" Cloud screamed, but it was too late. The alarm blared in his ears as Aeris, and then Zack, were felled in front of him in an instant, and their blood was pooling around his feet, and he was drowning in it, the copper taste filling his lungs as he clung to his own rifle, fourteen years old, as gunfire rattled around him in the Wutaian jungle, and the only thing louder was --

Cloud jerked awake, drenched in sweat, still trembling. He bolted upright as his alarm clock continued to buzz angrily, and it took him a moment or two to remember that he had not been deployed to Wutai in nearly ten years, and that even if he was drowning in blood he could swim perfectly well when not locked in a glass tube, and that he'd had the great satisfaction of personally running Hojo through himself two years ago, and that he was safe at home in his bed, and that Zack and Aeris were dead anyway....

He sighed and buried his face in his hands, not even bothering to switch the alarm off. As the sound finally shut itself off, he found himself idly wondering who he'd have picked, before forcing himself to stop wondering immediately. It didn't matter, because it would never happen, and it didn't accomplish anything to dwell on awful hypotheticals. Tifa would have said as much, albeit not in those words. She'd been trying to talk him into seeing a therapist, but after the disastrous meeting with the psychologist, where he'd had the gall to insist Cloud actually had some kind of pretentious-sounding _mental disorder_ s as though he were crazy and Cloud had responded by throwing a lamp at his head, he hadn't been keen to return.

He could still smell the smoke, though his dream had long since ended. Maybe he'd been right. Maybe he was cracked in the head.

Cloud frowned and sniffed again. That wasn't gun smoke or wood smoke _or_ burning body smoke.

He quietly slipped out of bed, the floor ice cold against his bare feet. He changed out of the sweat-drenched shirt he'd been using as pyjamas -- one of Barret's he'd left behind on his last visit -- and pulled on the first sweater he fished out of the clean clothes pile, which happened to be one of Tifa's. He pressed his face into the clean, silky fabric, her scent soothing his nerves somewhat, though his hands still shook as he did up the buttons.

Then he crept downstairs, careful not to wake Denzel, and let himself out the back door.

As expected, Tifa was outside, a mug of coffee propped up on the air conditioning unit, nursing a cigarette, a distant expression on her face.

"Thought you quit," said Cloud softly. Still not soft enough, he realised, as she started violently, knocking the mug to the ground. He dashed forward and caught it before it or a drop of its contents ever hit the ground, and set it aside. It was about the only thing his enhanced speed and reflexes were good for these days, not that he was complaining.

"Sorry -- just --" stammered Tifa.

"It's fine," said Cloud. He didn't quite want to look at her directly. Aeris and Zack weren't the only ones he'd dreamt about before.

"...I can't help you today," she said shortly, and Cloud realised he must still look pretty haggard. "I'm sorry."

"Couldn't sleep?" asked Cloud, as though he didn't notice the huge bags under her eyes, and the trembling in her own fingers. She shook her head.

"Trade you," said Cloud flatly. Tifa took another drag from her cigarette and didn't respond right away.

"Want one?" she said eventually, reaching into her pocket and offering him the pack.

"Does it help?" asked Cloud. Not that he'd ever admit it to the outside world -- he had an image to maintain, damn it -- but he'd never actually smoked before. Cigarettes had been contraband in the army, by the time he'd been old enough to want to try, and Cloud hadn't been anywhere near socially connected enough to get a hold of anything like that. And it wasn't as though Hojo had ever offered anything to "take the edge off". Half the time they were lucky just to get anesthetic.

"It helps me," said Tifa. "You really shouldn't, you know."

"Probably not," said Cloud, and took a cigarette anyway. Between smoking, self-isolation, and contemplating situations that did nothing but fill him with dread, he'd take the smoking. He held up a thumb and created a small flame at the tip of it to light the cigarette, then took a drag himself.

It smelled awful. Clearly these were not designed for people with noses as sensitive as his.

It was also a good thing no one else was around but Tifa, because what little remained of his dignity couldn't deal with him choking on a lungful of smoke in front of an audience. She laughed a little.

"Oh yeah? How'd your first time go?" he returned.

"I threw up," she admitted. "You're doing fine."

The second breath was easier. And once he got past the smell, it did help a little. Offered a nice buzz, the more he breathed. Even if he’d still rather get drunk -- at least scotch smelled nice.

"Do _you_ wanna talk about it?" asked Cloud at last.

Tifa shook her head. "I'd rather just... not deal with any of it for a while."

Cloud nodded. Tifa took another draw, and he watched as the smoke wafted its way from her mouth, to be whisked away almost immediately by the breeze.

"...When was your first, anyway?" Cloud asked, fighting down another cough.

"A little after I came to Midgar," she admitted. "Noam kept offering me harder stuff too. It was pretty tempting, considering..."

Noam was the previous owner of the original Seventh Heaven that Tifa had told Cloud she'd stayed with upon first arriving in the city. Hadn't even been a month since she'd lost her father and everything else she'd ever known, then. He felt a surge of admiration towards Tifa then; if it had been him, he'd probably be neck-deep in opiates every waking minute if given half the chance.

"I'm sorry I never came to find you," she said suddenly. "If I'd known --"

"Don't be stupid," said Cloud. "I thought you were dead. You thought I was schmoozing it up in some Shinra penthouse. We barely even knew each other." He flicked a bit of ash off the end of his cigarette, the way he'd seen one of his commanding officers do once, and immediately experienced a rush of shame at how cool it had made him feel. He took a sip of Tifa's coffee to try and wash the taste out. "I never blamed you." His mouth twisted into a wry little smile at his own joke.

"Is that what you were upset about?"

Tifa shook her head again. "No. Just got to thinking...."

"Mm." Another drag of the cigarette. It really was awful, buzz aside.

He stared at the lit end for a while, his eyes unfocusing. He wasn't really sure why he was still smoking it.

"Maybe I should go see a therapist," he said suddenly. Tifa stared at him as though he'd sprouted a second head. "You could come with me."

"If you think that'd help you," said Tifa cautiously.

"...It might," he admitted. With his eyes unfocused, the lit end of the cigarette seemed to blur into two indistinct embers. "Not why..."

"Cloud?"

"Mm?" He blinked and put out the cigarette. "Not my thing, sorry."

Tifa shook her head. "What brought this on?"

"A lot of things," he admitted. "But mostly you. I mean -- not like that, but..."

Tifa was staring at him now, frowning. His first instinct was to look away, but instead he met her eyes.

"Do you actually _want_ to quit smoking?"

The question had obviously caught her off guard. She didn't answer right away.

"Do you?" she said eventually.

"Of course I do," said Cloud. "It'd be good for you. And I want you to be able to," he added pointedly. "But I can't make you, and it's your choice."

It was Tifa's turn to look away uncomfortably.

"Just come with me," said Cloud. "Really. It'll help both of us, I think."

"You've really been considering this for a while, huh?"

"No, just now," he said truthfully. He chugged the rest of Tifa's coffee, which had long since gone cold, and then before she had a chance to object, hugged her tightly.

"You should've come out here to smoke a long time ago," he muttered next to her ear. "Saved us both a lot of trouble."

He let go. He thought, at first, that Tifa's eyes looked a bit wet, but when he stepped away she'd recovered enough to look faintly amused.

"Go get me another coffee, or I won't make breakfast," she said shortly.

"Yes, ma'am." He turned to leave.

Behind him, he caught Tifa taking one last drag on her cigarette before putting it out against the wall and tossing it into the skip behind the bar.


End file.
